Instructor Guidelines

Important Announcement: Due to Turnitin storing personal information in the United States, the Moodle plug-in will remain turned off in accordance with the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Read more

October 7, 2011

To comply with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, Turnitin will be replacing all identifying information of UVic students with non-identifying information. At midnight on Sunday, October 9th, all personal information of our students (first name, last name, email address and student number) entered prior to the beginning of term (September 5, 2011) will be replaced.

Turnitin has indicated that instructor information will be unaffected.

Students who had an identity on the system prior to September 5th and who have used that identity this term (i.e., since September 5th) will be affected. We have sent an email to students we believe will be impacted by this situation, letting them know they will need to create a new account. Information for students can be found at http://elearning.uvic.ca/turnitin/student-guidelines.

Please contact http://elearning.uvic.ca/contact-us/turnitin if you require access to a previously submitted paper or have any questions regarding this matter.

Important Information

Instructor accounts, courses and assignments WILL NOT CHANGE!
In your assignment inbox, any assignments previously submitted by students who created their Turnitin accounts prior to September 5, 2011, will no longer reflect the student's name and email address. A unique key will be displayed in its place. To identify which student submitted the assignment, complete the support request form at http://elearning.uvic.ca/contact-us/turnitin. Please provide the class and assignment name, and the unique information that replaces the student name and email address.
Students who created their Turnitin accounts prior to September 5, 2011 must create a new Turnitin account and they must know the Class ID and the Class Enrollment Password to join your class. Student instructions are located at http://elearning.uvic.ca/turnitin/student-guidelines.
In your assignment inbox, any assignments previously submitted by students who created their Turnitin accounts on or after September 5, 2011 will correctly reflect the name and email address that the student provided when creating their account. .

The use of Turnitin by instructors is voluntary. Those wishing to use Turnitin in their courses should be aware of the following:

The University reserves the right to use plagiarism detection software programs to detect plagiarism in essays, term papers and other assignments.
In each course syllabus or course outline, instructors must inform students that in assessing papers, the Turnitin service may be used.
Request that students submit their own assignments to Turnitin, or submit the student's paper on their behalf. Optionally, you can request a paper copy of the submitted paper.
Advise students that they must not provide any identifying information in their papers that are submitted, such as their name, email address or "V number".
Turnitin does not identify plagiarized text. The instructor must analyze the report and make an academic judgement as to whether the similar text is legitimate or not.
When setting assignment due dates, be aware that the response time for the generation of the Originality Report is dependent upon network connectivity, varying from 10 minutes to 24 hours. During mid-terms, response time may be much longer.
The Policy on Academic Integrity is published in the UVic Undergraduate and Graduate Studies Calendar each each year, which states:

Turnitin.com will not detect similarities from:

paper-based textbooks and journals (unless available on-line)
full text online subscription services unless Turnitin has negotiated to add the online journals and other online subscription publications to the database
graphical materials such as charts, diagrams, graphs, pictures and images source code for computer programming language

How to Use Turnitin

Obtain a University of Victoria Turnitin instructor account by completing the Turnitin Account Request form.
The UVic Turnitin Administrator will send you an email confirming the creation of your Turnitin account.
Turnitin.com will send you an email informing you of your temporary Turnitin account password.
Once you setup your user account, you will need to first create a class (i.e. a course) before creating an assignment dropbox. (Note: If you plan to allow TA to access your course, you will need to create a “Master Class” instead. (Please see P.170 of Instructor User Manual)
To learn more, please see screencast: Creating an Assignment (04:00)
On the class creation page, enter a class name and an enrolment password. The enrolment password is the password your students will use to enroll in your class. Pick a password that is easy for your students to remember and that contains all lowercase letters.
To learn more, please see screencast: Creating a Class (01:41)
Once you create a class, you can create an assignment dropbox in your class by clicking on “New Assignment” and follow the on-screen instructions.
To learn more, please see screencast: Creating an Assignment (04:00)
Once students submit their assignments, you can use Turnitin to view the Originality Report; video demo: Viewing an Originality Report (03:27)

For more details, please visit Turnitin's Quickstart Guide

Note: if you plan to submit student submitted papers to the system on their behalf, please remember to delete any identifying information from the original document prior to uploading it. This includes their name and student number in the document, as well as any metadata or hidden data that might be stored in the document itself. To remove the metadata from Microsoft Word:

In Microsoft Word (Windows), you can remove the hidden data by using Microsoft Word’s Document Inspector
In Microsoft Word (Mac), you can remove the hidden data by clicking on Word > Preferences > Security, then selecting Remove personal information from this file on save